A survivor's guide to teenage parenting involving rabbit feet, four leaf clovers and going to Church on Sunday.

Friday, 23 July 2010

Battle of the Remote Control II and III

AOR ~Adult orientated rock was once a well known abbreviation, but I am showing my age. Nowadays my age has migrated me to Adult orientated television ~ AOT.

The bug-bear of all this is my kids have also migrated from Deputy Dawg, Penlope Pittsstopp, Blue Peter or whatever is the New Millenium equivalent. My kids have gone from KOT to TOT ~ Kid to Teenager orientated television.

It is inane but appears to amuse, some teenager with a US dentist-happy permanent smiler decides to wear blue polka dot pullover which is just about to be a source of great humour whether I like it or not. She goes to school which is a radical concept in a polka dot pullover apparently. She does unfunny things as a bully ~ or the bully ~ is shown up as a bully. Our heroine has friends, as in friends rally round and, believe it or not, all the friends all end up wearing the same polka dot pullover, which has become the rage because a good morale is necessary and all to a chorus of canned laughter like a misery-while-u-wait, unpleasant on the deaf-wish ear backing track, that is so canned it should be wrapped in green and called Heinz.

I look on and remember back in the day, where was the canned laughter backtrack friends thirty years ago when I dared to wear a fashion icon that was outside the tribal furs of the local bully, yep, my freinds were backtracking to a silent tune and thanking the Lord I was the stupid one. Life moves along its learning curve and the plasma screen preserves another reality.

However today I am in an adult minority of one, to a teenage brain this is seriously funny stuff. So funny the remote control is hidden under the cushion and she knows I know that, so a bum is shifting to maintain a possession is 9 tenths of the law psychi. Battle lines are drawn. I win victory on Remote Control ownership by the parental equivalent of arm wresting- the adult stare. Life is not fair when there is a weather forecast awaiting.

The other reality of TV, the bigger issue, the teenage true love played out in plasma widescreen that paralyses the senses and is the bigger problem for the squeamish. The adult-child grey zone is called TOTTY ~ teenage orientated titillation television yurgh. This is not suppose to happen at tea-time. It is not soft porn, it is not heavy petting, but its hinting at it, its crossing the grey zone that should have been covered in sex education lessons and avoided by compulsory wearing of heavy duty XXXL polar neck pullovers, but I am not sure they were and the pullovers are XXS polka dot apparently.

The Goth character is a Goth, the director is film noire and I don't want questions from a daughter and I don't want a hint of sexual deviation that I may need to explain to a daughter. The goth is vampire. The vampire is somehow sweet, but dangerous.

I shift aimlessly. The daughter is probably on my wavelength for once, but confirmation is shrouded in silence. The silence is unbroken and where is canned laughter when you need it. The stars have kissed - this is a warning ......a bum shifts...... a remote control is released to breathe fresh air and ......a channel is flipped and by the powers invested in the GOD of universal animation ~the Anthill Mob rescue the day ~ Penelope Pittstop is saved. A Father is a saved. A daughter is saved.